Most successful recommendation of 2013: China Distance Education Holdings (+60.5%) “We are upgrading DL to Outperform from Perform and introducing an $8 target. Momentum in its core accounting test prep services has picked up, and we anticipate a 23%/35% revenue/EPS CAGR for FY12-14.”

Most successful recommendation of 2013: Groupon (+41.9%) “Eric and Ted will bring in a new CEO with a strong operating background to move the company forward, so they not only grow the top line but more importantly the bottom line.”

Most successful recommendation of 2013: GameStop (+44.0%) “We expect the PS4 will be a meaningful growth driver for GameStop as the retailer’s hardware market share has grown from 20% during 2006 [the time of the PS3’s launch] to 35% today.”

Most successful recommendation of 2013: Ulta Salon (+24.9%) “While not having a permanent CEO and weaker gross margins in Q1 raise concerns, the question we asked is do we believe in the growth potential of the concept. … Given that our answer is yes, and given that yes implies a growth rate of 25% to 30% at a low 20's multiple, we now like that risk reward.

Most successful recommendation of 2013: Twitter (+125.9%) “We believe that Twitter’s user and advertising monetization platform is in the early innings. We see a well-defined ecosystem with strong network effects developing around Twitter that should lead to out-sized shareholder returns for years to come. As such, we recommend investors buy the shares of Twitter to capture upside from Twitter’s value creation engine.”

------------------------------------------------*Here's the methodology from TipRanks:

TipRanks looks at a variety of benchmarks, including the traditional % average over the S&P 500 and performance success rate. But, we go far beyond this information in our ranking over the analysts.

When it comes to evaluating adviser performance, we not only measure how much an analyst outperforms a specific benchmark, but also how consistent they are in doing so.

As such, TipRanks uses the statistical Z-test to determine the statistical viability / consistency of financial advisers stock recommendations against a benchmark.

· Which adviser has a better success rate, one that gave 10 recommendations out of which 7 outperformed the benchmark (70%) or one that gave 100 recommendations out of which 68 outperformed the benchmark (68%)? While 70% is greater than 68%, achieving a 68% success rate over 100 recommendations is “statistically harder” than achieving 70% over 10.

· Which adviser has a higher excess return over the benchmark, one that gave 10 recommendations and outperformed the benchmark by 3.2% or one that gave 100 recommendations and outperformed the benchmark by ‘only’ 3%?

To measure the adviser performance against the benchmark, TipRanks calculates the Z-score the recommendation set given by each adviser and can thus compare an adviser with 10 recommendations to an adviser that gave 100 recommendations.

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